Wise choices – wise spending – getting the most from your wellness dollars

Without knowing it, employers are often spending money on wellness activities that do not get the desired results or worse yet, they don’t know what they did or didn’t get!
1.       Wise choices begin with “doing the homework” of assessing what is: already in place, already paid for, driving health-related costs up, and staff resources
Presenter will describe the assessment process and provide a worksite wellness scoresheet.
2.       Wise spending begins with only spending money on: what you don’t already have, taking advantage of what’s available for free, prioritizing, careful budgeting, making sure you “get what you paid for!”
Presenter will provide a resource checklist to identify what the organization already has such as safety staff, insurance broker, space for indoor and/or outdoor workouts, discounts, potential co-op situations, parks, local farmer’s market, etc.). Attendees will also be provided with list of free resources available through not-for-profit organizations government, free worksite wellness kits and wellness collaborative.
A.       Prioritizing can be by high impact, low cost, program rollout timeline, and/or “low hanging fruit”. Close examination of assessment will identify these options.
Presentation will include samples of each of these considerations.
B.       Budgeting will take into consideration what is really necessary to achieve the desired outcome. Using best practices employers can determine expected return on investment relative to the wellness initiatives put in place and considerations.
Presentation will include a grid of program activities & the related expected return on investment.
C.       Specific measureable goals, objectives, data collection and evaluation tell the story of “getting what you paid for.”
Presentation will include sample goals, objectives, data collection methods and evaluation process.
D.        Samples of low-cost and effective programs in a variety of businesses
Presenter will share experiences with what other businesses have done.

• Risk managers
• Managers
• HR Administrators
• Finance Officers
• Business owners

• Long-term and short-term strategic planning is cornerstone of successful programming
• Wellness budget is targeted for results, not just activities
• Most of the resources to conduct an effective employee wellness program are free – it’s how you use them that makes the difference

• The Community Guide, Worksite health promotion
• The Health and Productivity Advantage Staying@Work Report, 2009/2010

		Cathy Rasmusson Healthy Business Designs View Profile